Minister: More than 33,000 refugees entered Bavaria in last 10 days

Bavaria's interior minister said Tuesday that 33,300 refugees have entered the country through the borders of the southern German state in the last 10 days

Interior Minister Joachim Hermann - a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) - said that officials counted 33,300 new arrivals between December 26 and January 4.

"Every day over 3,000 new refugees enter Germany," he said. "Those numbers are simply much too high."

The news comes after CSU chief Horst Seehofer called for an annual cap of 200,000 on the number of refugees entering Germany, prompting a major debate within the governing coalition.

Seehofer's proposed threshold is less than a fifth of the number of asylum seekers registered by German authorities in 2015.

The CSU leader, the most powerful politician in Bavaria, has become a thorn in Merkel's side amid intense pressure from his conservative constituents to stem the influx of migrants, the vast majority of whom are entering the country through its southern border.

Beirut (dpa) - Syrian government forces and their allies advanced deeper into the shrinking rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo on Wednesday, seizing the Old City, while demanding the armed opposition groups leave the area.